Coffee With David

August: Never have I been so excited and so fearful of the month of August like I am now. Over the last week at my bill paying job, I have been listening to an old Country song to keep myself motivated to get an overwhelming task done while I had to put my other profession--writer--on hold. Yet, that song applies to the task in my writing as well. The song is "Eastbound and Down" and the lines that make the song fitting are: "We're gonna do what they say can't be done. We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there."

August: I have put myself to an incredible challenge: By August 3rd I need to have two novels done. One is half way rough drafted and the other is waiting for the first to be done. Notice, I wrote they had to be done. Let me define the term "done." This means: rough drafted, edited by me to what I call Alpha draft (Others would call this the 9th draft), given to my Alpha readers, and rewritten based on my Alpha readers comments and re-edited.
The challenge: Besides the fact that we are discussing multiple drafts of two novels to be completed within 104 days, but they must be written and completed during a time when my bill paying job will be under a high amount of pressure where my schedule may not always be under my control.

August: With all of this, why do this to myself? The answer is simple. With my crazy bill paying job schedule I can only make three writers conferences a year where I can get myself in front of agents or editors to pitch my writing to. In August is one of those conferences. At this time I am pitching a Science Fiction and a Paranormal Mystery novel to 4 agents and 2 editors. Let me be clear to my readers who may not understand the writing business: the odds of having a book published is not stacked in a writers favor. Some numbers I heard from one agent is that her office gets 32,000 queries and only had 1 of those picked up and sold. With that said, to be published you have to keep writing, keep improving and keep submitting. If you don't, you never will be published. My career goal is not to be published. My career goal is to be published often! August is one goal date. My next will be January for the next big conference, and I will be getting more books to be written by that month as well (at least a horror novel added).

With this goal in mind, I sing that old Country song under my breath with each keystroke--"We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. I 'm east bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run. "
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